1. Field of the Invention
The present application relates to a container, and more particularly to an insulated container which can sense and count the number of times beverages and other content that have been placed into the container.
2. Description of Related Art
Note that the points discussed below may reflect the hindsight gained from the disclosed inventions, and are not necessarily admitted to be prior art.
Insulated containers have been widely used in keeping food or beverages in certain temperature, either ice cold or heated, for picnics or other outdoor activities. The container is usually a rectangular box having a hinged lid that is made of double layered plastic in the body and lid, with thermo foam insulation preventing heat exchange.
The rectangular box can be of different sizes, depending on its use for the number of people. For large family or a party of a crowd of more than ten, the container can have a dimension wider, deeper and longer than 2 feet, which could contain more than 100 cans of beer or other drinks.
Conventionally, people make a mental note of how many individual drinks such as, for example, cans of beers, soda, milk, etc. having been placed into the container which may be a cooler, and check on the cooler for how many times it has been refilled with another can of beer, soda, etc. In the slurry of activities, people may become so tired or occupied, they may forget about the food that is left in the container. And they often lose track on how many individual drinks such as cans of beers have been consumed. For caterers of a big festival, it may become a mission impossible for them to keep track of all the beverages that have been consumed.
Therefore, there is a need for a container/cooler that helps keep track of the number of beverages being consumed or food that might be left over in the container, either to ease the task of management of a festival, or to serve as a reminder for people to remain sober or in control.